Swiss Criminal Procedure Code
(Criminal Procedure Code, CrimPC)

¹ If there are in­dic­a­tions that a death did not oc­cur nat­ur­ally, and in par­tic­u­lar in­dic­a­tions of an of­fence, or if the body is uniden­ti­fied, the pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall or­der an in­spec­tion of the body to be car­ried out by a spe­cial­ist doc­tor in or­der to es­tab­lish the cause of death or to identi­fy the body.

² If, after the in­spec­tion of the body, there is no evid­ence that an of­fence has been com­mit­ted and if iden­tity is es­tab­lished, the pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall re­lease the body for the fu­ner­al.

³ The pub­lic pro­sec­utor shall oth­er­wise or­der the body to be se­cured and fur­ther tests, and if ne­ces­sary an autopsy to be car­ried out by an in­sti­tute for forensic medi­cine. It may or­der the body or parts there­of to be re­tained for as long as re­quired for the pur­pose of the in­vest­ig­a­tion.

⁴ The can­tons shall de­cide per­sons in the med­ic­al pro­fes­sion are re­quired to re­port un­nat­ur­al deaths to the crim­in­al justice au­thor­it­ies.